


Here comes Alice.

by the_Lady_Dionysus



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 09:28:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1505348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_Lady_Dionysus/pseuds/the_Lady_Dionysus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's months of work to sort out the programming stuck in his head, weeks more to start to break it nights of horrific nightmares and cold sweats .<br/>but breakthroughs are made and his life starts to fall back into some sort of order, some sort of life, less of a mission. He sees Steve more, and more, and finally he starts to feel real again, like he can live and not just survive, until it happens. The incident. The mission gone wrong for the good captain. And no one will tell him more. </p>
<p>When Steve is all Bucky has left of himself what happens when the good captain comes back altered beyond recollection. With issues of his own to work though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> After almost a year I'm back on it!! writing again! And this comes all the way from China! So here it is, the first chapter I'm my starbucks fanfic! I hope you like it I'm a bit out of practice. but I'm trying.

The room he found himself currently seated in was silent, a sound (or lack there of ) unbecoming of the rooms harsh steel walls. Everything in this room was harsh, fixed, bound by bolts and forged of steel.  
The light was a soft half darkness in this subterranean box, as if lit by a bulb not yet at it's full capacity to glow. Every other day it was the same, brought down, strapped up and place on the chair, hand where we can see it, it had been in the singular since his surrender, chained down. Eyes front and wait, in silence, till they bring her out. Vague familiar memories associated themselves with her, bullets and missions and blood as read as her hair. They would bring her out and she would speak softly, calmly, filter their words through her ear piece as the sat safe between their cold two way mirror.  
At the start it hadn't been hard, answer the questions she gave, speak cold mechanical words and wait for their verdict. But it got harder, it was always going to get harder, her questions got harder as the days and weeks passes and memories distant and not entirely his own would float in and out of his consciousness. His answers would become slow sluggish and his voice and face would contour in emotions he was not entirely sure he was feeling.  
Crackle of ear pieces, small scratching voices float out of her ears like insects that nest their and he can here them. Her face holds something new now, no longer stone.

Three weeks by his count he has been here answering her questions. His nights have become shorter, sleep eludes him as he sorts through memories in his head, some are his, muscle memory dictated that these are his in the way he tenses in the way he looks at all the exits, in the way he sizes her up, sizes up the guards on his walk to and from his sleeping quarters.  
Some are definitely his memories, some he is not so sure about. In his head, it feels like him, but so different from where he is now like the memory of a dream half remembered. 

She was late today, he sits, still quiet, head down looking at his good hand. It's moments latter before she enters. Slowly, quietly, graceful she sits feet away separated by only the table but worlds away from the turmoil inside what's left of his head.  
“James?” The word come out with the bares hint of command, hidden in a concerned question.  
“Yes?” Eyes still on the table, it helps to control his more robotic functions of evaluation and escape, after all they don't like that, he can tell in the static hiss from her ear and subtle twitch if her expression  
“You recognise this to be your name?” Small calculated inflection denotes happiness more than likely associated with a breakthrough in this whole mess, even without the eye contact he is still calculating.  
“I recognise this as the name you have allotted me, backed up with irrefutable evidence.” Disinterest, neutral and safe.  
“You have not made so much as one wrong move since we brought you here.” Statement as much to inform him as those on the other side of the glass, whose scrutiny he can't escape.  
“I follow orders it's in my nature. my last handlers are gone, what does it matter whose lies or dirty work I do.” emotion, tastes weird on his tongue, but it's a taste he has been getting to know rather well these last few weeks.  
“We are going to be taking you in, for deprogramming, try to undo all the damage that has been done in there by your previous,” There is a small pause, a silent ellipses between but he cant make out it's meaning “handlers, help you remember who you where.” She stops dead in her words as if the effort to pull the next from her chest hurts “Who he was.”  
His head snaps up, involuntary, and he looks her dead in the eyes. Him, yes, he knew him, staring role in his more emotive of dreams and night mares. Voice like home and something he couldn't remember. He was real, he knew him, not now, but he had at some point. He was important, he know this and he had been important to him too, all facts he could determine from the evidence. He had refused to fight on the hellicariar, spoke with such conviction of their emotive past. And in a moment of emotional compromisation he had saved him! His target, his mission he had defied orders, and pulled him from the lake.  
He was the reason he was here, he was everything, he was the great ghost the mystery at the back of his closet. The mystery of himself that had him in such complacent surrender.  
“Very well.” he cast his eyes back to the table and tried not to think of what tortures the deprogramming would hold.  
The crackle and hiss in her ear was clear and loud to his ears as the deep static commanded  
“Bring him up to the higher levels”


	2. Chapter 2

It takes months, none of it particularly fun, trying to work through the layers and layers of fail safes they had put in his head. The process of triggering, neutralising, containing, only to have it repeated again the next day. Courses of 'mild' electro shock treatment and drug induced memory recovering hypnotic techniques. None of it pain free, none of it fun, she should know she went through it once before. 

She had been put in charge of over seeing the process, she had been deemed the most suitable for the job; knowledge of the procedures, knowledge of the patient, and the only person with the strength and skill (besides the no go zone that was Rodgers) to subdue him if things got out of hand.   
They did, how could they not. A man, who at the core of who he was, who they where trying to get him back to, was good, had done terrible things. And they where attempting to wake the sleeping prince, bring him into a world where his hands where a red that would never fully wash clean. It was torturous and she had a front row seat for the whole painful show. 

The process was slow, it was always going to take time, but bit by bit they where seeing an improvement, seeing memories start to return. It was important that he spoke through the memories, in as much detail as he could muster, prove to himself that they must be his. That the feelings that go along with them, must be his. Take them out of their box and put the winter soldier's in. As the months progressed, with more certainty, more clarity, he painted pictures of Brooklin. Painted pictures of, dirty city streets and stick ball, back allies and elementary school, the kids on the block, Steve. Steve, small and frail the boy down the block. Mothers hanging out tenement windows in the washing rooms always chatting always speaking, his mother, with clarity and assurance he remembered her. And Steve 's mom. Together. Him and Steve so young already so different. But he could paint him so well thin, week, small bones that threatened to tear through skin no matter how much he ate. A wheeze that was almost chronic in winter and accompanying all manner of recreation in summer. Steve.   
As the weeks passed the treatment continued and the more he remembered, teenage years, double dates, and dancing. handfuls of gals chaste and not so. Dancing, and kissing and Steve. Always along for the ride. Baseball and movies and, Steve. Enlistment and training and, Steve. 

And by three months Natasha felt she had lived Steve and Bucky's childhood just as much as them.   
There had been amazing breakthroughs in his memory recovery and day by day he was becoming less and less the soviet killing machine, and more and more Bucky. But that was in itself painful. There where the night mares, 24hour surveillance meant she could live through every painful moment, every anguished scream, every, wet, chocked, plea for help. A good man had done terrible things and now the price was waking up, and he would have to deal with these things.  
His pallor grew sallow and heavy circles ringed his eyes in the days to come, no sleep, no rest. Awake he could contain these felling, tie them tight in the box marked winter soldier. But asleep they bled together till he woke screaming, sweating, clawing at his own flesh.  
More memories came back, dancing, a regular in the halls and good with a foxtrot, his teenage years. Steve, he had always worried about him, he stopped growing when he was about 15 not a tall kid not a strong kid, not built for the winter, him nor his mom. And all that was left of Steve's family slipped away. Bucky was all he had. Stubborn he wanted to go it alone, but he was always like that, lion stuck in a rabbits body. So Bucky watched from the shadows, there for him when things got to tough.  
He remembered enlistment, and training and his orders to ship out to England. He remembered it all with perfect clarity, but the terrors of night didn't lesson, each sparkling revelation of a life before threw him further and further into despairer.

Therapy was good, therapy would help. But the pain would still be there, he would just know how to deal with it better. It was always going to get worse before it got better. She knew this and on the long walks through the buildings to the psychiatrist she would tell him this.   
But today was the day that it got as low as it was going to get this is where he would hit rock bottom, had she known this before she might have opted to have her seat in the nosebleeds. The other side of a digital relay camera in the secure room 200 yards down the hall, rather than front row, in the adjacent room on the other side of the two way mirror.  
She had been on watch, from the start since the director had appointed her to handle him, until he was proven safe to be on his own. Her job was simple monitor and if needed subdue and neutralise any threat. She hadn't been needed in months not since they had removed the triggers, not since they had hollowed him out. That's what they had done, hollowed him out and tried to fill him back up with Bucky. So for now she watched patiently and quietly and hoped she isn't needed, as his sessions continued.  
“So how are we doing today James?” The room is small, three soft chairs and a table, all bathed in the crisp morning light that glides so easily through the 33rd floor window.  
“Just fine I guess.” He's tired, he knows it, she knows it, and he knows she knows it. But really, he can't muster the energy to care right now. Everything is filtered to him threw the sluggish haze of sleep deprivation.   
“Really, those marks under your eyes don't look like an indicator of fine, James.” 'Spare me.' The look so plane to read on his face at that moment.  
“Well what's a little lost sleep,” He straightens up. “what's on the agenda today doc?” False bravado, a hollow mimic of something he can only remember having in far distant dream like times.  
“Whatever you want James, we can talk about whatever you want to talk about.” He sighs a half laugh, that was a joke. She might say that, but we always talk about what she wants to talk about.   
“Well maybe I don't feel much for talking today.” It was snide and bitter, he knew that, but he had been on the bare minimum of sleep for days now.  
“That's to bad” Smiling concern, perfect bed side manor, most other days he would admire it.  
“I was hoping to be regaled with tales of you heroic escapades, as I recall I only got as far as a dusty pub in London last time we met.” she finishes with a look that he cant name somewhere between smug and hopeful and he cant help but sigh. That had been the last memory that came back to him. First time abroad, old London town waiting to be sent across the channel to the real fighting. Ready to give his life. He leaned back thoughtfully. What had happened next, his forehead creased as he tried to recall.   
“We moved out the next day, over to the front lines, I'd say a lot for Europe, and its women.” He smiled almost a perfect shadow of his former wolfish grin. “But the weather is not something I remember fondly. Days driving in the mud, on half finished roads, through ailed territory up to the line in Austria.”  
“Sounds bleak, not just the weather.” She was leaning forward, chin resting on laced fingers, elbows balanced on crossed legs. The picture of avid interest.  
“No, it was all I ever wanted,” He wasn't looking at anything in particular, but his face was screwed up, as he justified the feeling, as much to himself as to her. “I was doing my part for the war. I was ready to serve, the rain, the mud in the trenches, the lukewarm, burnt tasting coffee, that was bleak. But the cause, no not that.”  
“So what happened next?” At this he seemed to stop teeth pulling at a bottom lip eyes on the floor. Sharp exhales of annoyance.  
“I, . . I don't remember, there was,” He leaned forward and pinched the bridge of his nose, rubbing soothing circles, eyes screwed shut. “There was, an enemy force. we where sent over the top against it.” Sentences as fractured as the memory. “Hydra. But we where over powered, we where killed or taken to their camp, their factory. I don't know what happened, even in my right state I don't think I would remember, I have flashes, blue light and the stinging pinprick of needles, of German voices and. . . . Steve.” At this he stops eyes open staring into his own memories, he isn't in the room, he's far of, miles behind enemy lines. Only relaying the information. “Steve came for me. Came for all of us, but he was different, not my Steve, new. Bigger. Stronger. The lion heart in a loins body he was,”  
His eyes snapped open to stare but not at the doctor not at anything, but in a look that denoted sudden, earth shattering realisation. “The man on the bride, the agent, the target. Steve”  
In the end it was a kindness, no matter what way you looked at it ,that Steve had been denied asses so far. And it was a kindness Natasha envied at that moment. All the breaking they had done, hollowing him out the shock treatment, subduing him, they had nothing on the look of pain on his face now. And Natasha was almost sure she could hear the sickening snap as he hit rock bottom. Eyes so recently marred with deep dark shadowing and bruising,now framed in red as he visibly associated his childhood friend, his brother in arms, his Steve with every sickening blunt fisted blow he dealt the man on the bridge.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So this Is the 3rd chapter so far. I'm sorry. I know they are all full of mistakes. but I'm very short of willing volunteers to help me beta-read and, am more than a little incapable of it myself (dyslexic). So I am really sorry about that! =[  
> But besides that I hope you guys are liking it! I'm having a really good time writing it though I have to do it around work and other junk!  
> Anyway again sorry and let me know what you think kudos, is always appreciated thanks to all who have left some already! You guys rock!

It should have been weeks if not months, he knew this. Should have been weeks spent in the hospital, recovering from broken bones and internal bleeding. He had come out of this one bad and in all honesty he thought he might not even come out of this at all.  They had told him it was nothing short of a miracle him washing up on that lake, and he was almost ready to resign himself to defeated belief that that had been all it was. But then there was the image, the shadow above the water, filtered light of the surface that grew ever closer. The choking feel of cloth wrenching and tightening with the waters unrelenting resistance to free him, the sort of choke that is oh so different from the wet burn of drowning. Dragging him to the surface and leaving him on the shore. But they would tell him nothing of it, and he was content to keep his suspicion and delusion a secret for the powers that would be.   He was lucky he knew this, in nothing short of a week and a half he had been released from the hospital under the orders of taking it easy. Like that could really happen. From the moment he was back in his apartment he was at work ripping out every bug every hidden camera. Hours, mere hours it took him to clean the house. And before he knew it, he was on the phone, desperately hanging on every unanswered ring, that chimed the recipients reluctance to answer, breaths held between rounds. But she did, she picked up.    
“Steve? Out of the hospital only hours and looking for me? Didn't the doctor tell you to take it easy?” Her voice was flat, it usually was when she talked to him, out with the context of missions. No one else to hear voice striped of the many characters that she reserved for the ears of others. This was his honour.   
“Yea, super soldier remember I heal fast. But I could use a bed side visit. Wanna come by for a coffee.” His words where playful but, his tome betrayed none of it, dead pan, flat bordering on command.  
“Look Steve, I know what you are going to ask, but you might not want to open that door of horrors.” There was a pause. Loaded on both sides of expectation and tension.   
“ I appreciate your concern but, you know I have to.” Teeth gritting, a wet, blunt screech, that would make it as far as his ears but she would never hear.    
“ I’ll give the coffee a miss. But I’ll do what I can.” I promise. She didn't say it but he can hear it in her voice, in the pause, unfinished statement.  
The click of the phone on the other side was the switch that silenced the room. 

It was a hard task trying to get back to normality, or as close as a 95 year old frozen man could call normality. The gym, his runs, reading, the radio, back to business back to catching up on the missing years. His list got longer and shorter all at once. As he emptied things from it and found new things to take their place. But he never stopped looking, always on edge, always searching every noise every rustle every pair of eyes he felt watching him he was sure it was him, it was Bucky.  
But it never was, Sam helped, running partner, someone to drink with someone to laugh with, someone to talk to. He talked a lot to him, about Bucky about Brooklyn about growing up in the fortes, the war.   
People would see it, obviously, he didn't try to hide what he was doing. He was trying to bring fond memories of Bucky, paint a picture of the man still out their waiting to be saved, justify his deep rooted desire to save him, enlist someone in his corner. But deep down he knew, it wasn't Sam he was trying to win over, he knew it was part of himself he needed to convince that the real Bucky was still in there.   
Weeks went by before he had any one speak openly about the winter soldier. Natasha came to him one afternoon, met him and Sam in the park with a handful of old papers, corners foxed,it had cost her a lot to get her hands on those papers. Favours she would have preferred to use on something more personally important. But she did it for him. He cut his day short, after that cancelled all other pressing engagements, not that he had any, and sealed himself up in the safety of his apartment. As he leafed through the pages of the file.   
Maybe Natasha had been right, maybe these horrors where not something that he really wanted to see. But that wasn't going to stop him.

Steve had never really felt anything like this before. Somewhere beyond anger, where only the tendrils of panic could reach, yet so akin to frustration. Months now, months he had been searching, following every single lead in the file. Bringing down what was left of the shield hydra hybrid. His manic searchings had even allotted him a nice little city break in Moscow.  
But nothing, and nothing but, dead ends. It was like all traces of the winter soldier ended on that helicarrier. And on that thought Steve slumped down, exhausted by this point of moths of searching and fighting, on one of the softer chairs in his apartment. This was usually the point where he turned off his brain, went to bed content not to dwell further on that train of thought. Truth be told content just not to think anymore. But that wasn't an option, in sleep he could do little to escape his rampant imagination and its messy kaleidoscope of horrors, all available in full technicolour.  So that's how he found himself sat in his empty apartment, awake, following a train of thought he had been content to avoid for so long before now. All traces of Bucky ended on that helicarrier, maybe so did he. At this Steve threw his head back with a resigned sight.  The burn behind his eyes was familiar, but not something he had felt in a long time. He took a deep breath as he leaned forward, putting his head in his hands letting the tears he knew where not far away fall unhindered. Only someone like him would have to live threw the grieving process of the same man twice.  

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Therapy at the time had seemed like the worst possible idea. The last thing he really wanted to do was talk threw the things he had done. Yet he recognized the necessity of it. So reluctantly he had sat threw every session, and spoke it threw. He had finally reclaimed almost all of his memories and survived the emotional hurricane that accompanied them. He was well on his way to recovery now. But thoughts and feelings, and nightmares still made it hard to sleep. Of all the memories he had recovered the thing that stood out the most was Steve.  
Everything about who he was, who he had been, was all Steve. Every good memory recovered had been about him.  
And just to think that he had, that Steve was,   
because of him, it made the blood run cold in his veins and bile rise in his throat.   
It had been at the time the last thing he wanted to do, but now he was thankful for it. Through time and therapy he now felt closer to being human again, felt closer to forgiving himself, but it was not from himself that he sought forgiveness, required forgiveness.  
And that where he was now.  
“So, what do you want to talk about today? James?” That voice, so familiar by now, he didn't have to look up to map the facial expression accompanying it. A benevolent, gentile smile masking measured clinical calculation.   
“I don't know doc, what should we talk about?” Polite disinterest. He'd gotten good at that. The list of things he didn't want to talk about had gotten shorter, but that by no means meant that the list of things he did want to talk about had gotten any bigger.  
“You've made a lot of progress so far. Are you any closer to making peace with yourself?” At this he looked up. He hadn't meant to, she wasn't looking at him, eyes fixed on her open leather bound journal. Polite disinterest. He sighed leaning back on the chair where he was sat.   
“I'm not the one,” He paused sucking in a breath. “I require forgiveness form.” He could here the dry scratch of pen on paper. That scathing judgmental scrawl, only the noise of punctuation bringing him out of his own thoughts.   
“Who do you need forgiveness from James?” Toneless measured, dozens of responses ran threw his head in that lightning quick instant. But he settled for the truth, they all knew the answer what did it matter if he voiced it.  
“Steve.” The silence was loaded with the weight of all potential responses. Resentment disappointment, fear mixed their way with joy and hope. Light and dark both warring for dominance in his mind. A cacophony of his best and worse feelings. There was silence, for what felt like an eternity, before anyone spoke.   
“Then maybe it's time you saw him.” Only words. They where only words. What right did they have to make him feel like this. His hear lifted, only to lengthen the drop when it sinks. He allowed himself a half smile, let it trace it's way across his lips.  
“Really no man should feel this happy on his way to the gallows.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Just want to say thank you so much for the kudos they have been really motivational!! I hope you guys are enjoying it! Please see last chapters notes for spelling and grammar apologies.  
> The next chapter might be a little slow as I go on holiday this week to tokyo! (shameless gloating)  
> But I will try my best! Enjoy!

Secrets where in her opinion a necessity of of modern life, of human convenience. They of course came with a price, but one she paid gladly. She kept many, for the love of others, for the safety of many. But one of the prices of secrecy is that it is finite. All secrets from the moment they are spoken, are marked with an expiration date. And this particular secret was past it’s best. Bucky had been held in a secure S.H.I.E.L.D facility for the best part of five months now. Working his way back to who he used to be, and doing so (if at all possible) with as little damage as possible. She had of course, knowing all the gruesome and intricate details of his progress, been privy to all the reports. But could breath not a word of it. She was trapped, flicking between two painful channels. Rodgers, and the never ending trails and dead ends, that she had more than a hand in helping create, on the one side and the struggle of Bucky's therapy on the other. But this was just one more secret that she had to keep. This is what the higher ups had decides was best. Steve's involvement with Bucky, before he was deemed stable, would only cause lengthy complications. This is what they had decided was best, and she felt inclined to agree. But now it to pay the piper, she would have to own up to Steve, to knowing where Bucky had been all along, to knowing full well as she sent him on his wild goose chase.  Psych-Eval. had deemed Bucky once again stable, by no means undamaged, but stable and ready for gentle reintegration, ready to see Steve.   She sighed spinning her cell over and over in her hand. Sometimes she felt like she was more comfortable lying than she was telling the truth. And she was again, lies, she knew she was more comfortable telling lies than the truth. Reluctantly she halted the cells restless movements in her hand and proceeded to unlock it. The task at hand was far more daunting than the swirling galactic wallpaper would like her to believe. She entered in the numbers mechanically and held it to ear waiting for the the sharp click and static of answer from the other side.   
“Natasha?” Somewhere between a greeting and a question, someone still not entirely comfortable answering his cell phone. She smiled.    
“Hey Steve, are you busy?” Keep it casual, she only ever seems to call him with bad news or missions. Nip that in the bud straight away.    
“Ehhh, no not really. What do you need?” His voice was hesitant, proof of her previous line of thought.    
“Just, how about that bed side visit? I could use that coffee” Keep it light, no problem here. But she can physically here the look of confused concern paint its way across his face, smell the wood burning, hear the cogs turning.   
“Sure is everything ok? Where do you want to go?” Hesitant unsure. words slow.   
“Perhaps,” She paused “it would be better if I just came over to your apartment.” She was not looking forward to this. Best she could do was do it in the comfort and secrecy of his apartment. “Ok sure, how about 12?” His voice seemed almost a whisper over the static crackle of the cell, but she could say no words to alleviate his concerns, she was just as hesitant as him.   
“See you then.” The firm certainty of her voice was the best she could offer, as much as she didn't feel it.

The best part of the morning passed quickly, She had odds and ends to tidy up, but before she knew it she was walking down the boulevard towards Steve's apartment. It had been raining for at least the last 3 days, and the rain bounced off of her umbrella and fell on the side walk with a wet rattling prattle. By the time she made it to the apartment block lobby she was dripping wet. The wind had blown the rain so it had swirled up under her umbrella and clung to her hair. In the end her umbrella had proven to be of little use. So she dripped her way silently up the stairs and along the corridor that led to Steve's apartment door.   
She decided not to hesitate, no to think of the daunting task at hand, just to knock. And the next thing she knew she was sanding face to face (well, face to chest) with Steve.  
“Hey”  
“Hey” There was heavy silence, not awkward just fuelled with expectation from both parties.   
“Oh, yea, sorry come in.” The moment passed and he moved to the side granting her access to his apartment. They walked in silence through his home, she led the way and sat herself at the worktop breakfast bar just at the entrance tot he kitchen. Steve followed in silence walking round passed her to the coffee machine. Grabbing two mugs form the cabinet as he did so, and pouring them full. She sat silent the subject so unbroachable in her head. He sat one loaded mug down in front of her and took his place opposite. All the while her eyes had been on him, but now, with him in front of her, her eyes fell to the mug, now grasped firmly in her hand.  
“So, ho...”  
“Steve,” She cut him off head brought up to look him in the eyes “We need to talk.” There was sincerity in her voice, a quality it almost never held, and the force of this revelation brought shock across his face, as she took his silence and leave to continue.  
“You know that file I gave you, the one,” She so desperately wanted to look away but she held steady.  
“Well you know the one. Look Steve I knew, I knew you wouldn't find him, I've known all along but I couldn't tell you” He was the first to look away. Hands busying themselves with the coffee mug.  
“How long have shield had him?”  
His voice came out dry and cracked hardly more than a whisper, though he willed it to be so much more.   
“Since you where in the hospital.” There was a deep intake of breath, a reverse sigh, as his head came up. But to high eyes off to the side not wanting to meet her gaze, the burn was back, that relentless degrading burn, as his eyes became heavy and unfocused with unshed tears.   
“And shield thought it best not to tell me, to send me on my merry chase, to send you to lie to me?” His voice was thick and she could feel a tightening in her chest with each word he spoke.   
“I, I didn't lie to you Steve.”  
“No, no you didn't, not out right. But you lied through omission.” There was a bitter sting to his words an anger that she had not expected.   
“It wasn't for me to tell you, not at the time. It would have done more harm than good.” Indignation filled her voice though she fought to keep it even. This was not going to plan, not that she had a plan, she was out on her own here, looking for the right words to say, she was starting to feel like Clint.  
“And that's for someone else to decide for me is it? Because shield have been so good at...”  
“Steve!” Not a shout. You didn't shout at Captain America. But this had gotten out of hand, gotten far to heated.   
“What's done is done. That's not the point. Now is the time, he's asking for you.”  
His face had a hard edge to it. Teeth gritted in an effort no to snap at her for her interjection, eyes full to spilling at the sides just a little. But at her words it softened not straight away but the clench in his jaw dissolved, the tears that threatened to spill blinked away to a look of textbook confusion.  
“What?”  
“Bucky, he wants to see you.”


End file.
